from the flop dept

Volker Rieck runs a German anti-piracy operation, and over the last year or so has been an increasingly vocal -- if somewhat unhinged -- supporter of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive. I won't link, but a few quick Google searches will find some examples of Rieck trying to build out conspiracy theories of big giant American internet companies secretly running the entirety of the anti-Article 13 push in Europe. You could say that some of them dip into red yarn on a corkboard territory. Of course, as we've discussed before, the idea that any attacks on Article 13 are all really because of Google has been a key part of the pro-Article 13 lobbying strategy from the beginning. Of course, as we've highlighted, if you look at the actual lobbying, it's been almost entirely from legacy copyright organizations, with very little coming from the internet industry. This has created all sorts of conspiracy theories, including the crazy claim by a German MEP that he knew the emails he was getting against Article 13 were really astroturf from Google... because many of the senders had Gmail accounts.

Rieck's latest move, however, goes into really nutty territory. In a now deleted story, Rieck claimed to have found something of a smoking gun, proving that Article 13 criticism was really being driven by US corporate interests: in a "study" that he helped "conduct," and resulted in him sending an explosive "warning" letter to Members of the EU Parliament, he claimed to have uncovered that "more tweets (88,000) came from Washington (DC) alone than from the entire EU (71,000)." That would certainly be interesting if it were true.

The problem with that claim? It's not even close to true. It is based on Rieck not fully understanding the software they used to do this analysis, called Talkwalker. Luca Hammer initially called into question the use of Talkwalker (while our own Glyn Moody had called out another big problem with the data used in the study months ago). But the biggest issue was this: Talkwalker itself admits that if users haven't turned on location tracking on Twitter, then it just "guesses" their location based on a few factors -- with a fallback being language. And, if there are no other indicators of location, Talkwalker will associate all English tweets with being in Washington DC, i.e., the capital of the largest country where English is the primary language.

In other words, what looks like a grand conspiracy of a bot sending tweets about EU copyright policy out of the lobbying den of Washington DC, actually appears to be some pro-copyright maximalists completely misunderstanding the tool they were using to do an analysis. Not a good look.

Of course, some of the supporters of Article 13, like IMPALA Music have continued tweeting this "study" despite it being totally debunked, but I guess that's to be expected.

In the meantime, as law professor Annemarie Bridy correctly points out, even if this is about legislation for the EU, it's crazy to think that people in the US have no stake in the outcome. First off, EU legislation can reach well beyond the borders of the EU and into the US: witness GDPR and the Right to be Forgotten (remember, in France, they've been arguing that the RTBF, as applied in the EU, must be global in nature). Second, as we've seen for decades, copyright maximalists push ever more crazy copyright policies in one region of the world, and then demand "harmonization" elsewhere, pushing that the same rules be applied in other places. Going to Europe to get a crazy copyright law put in place, and then rushing back to the US to demand matching laws is not a new idea. It's literally how we got the DMCA in the first place.

So, no, the criticism of Article 13 is not being driven by some sneaky campaign out of Washington DC, but that also doesn't mean that American voices shouldn't be able to participate in a debate that will undoubtedly impact us and the internet we use.

from the still-abusive dept

You may have heard the story recently of how the band REM got a video in a tweet taken down after Donald Trump had retweeted the video. CNBC has the details:

A satirical video using music from rock band R.E.M., which was shared by the Twitter account of President Donald Trump, has been removed from the social media site after a complaint by the publisher of the band's songs.

A lawyer for Universal Music Publishing Group had reached out to Twitter on Friday asking that the video -- which was first posted by another user -- be taken down from the platform, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC.

The clip, which runs more than two minutes in length, plays audio from R.E.M.'s early-'90s hit single "Everybody Hurts" over excerpts from Trump's Feb. 5 State of the Union address.

This started to spread around on Twitter, and I saw lots of people who hate the President celebrating over this victory in yanking the stupid video (and it was stupid) from his tweet. REM and bassist Mike Mills celebrated:

But, even if you absolutely loathe the President and his silly partisan gloating, you should be very concerned about this. And, I know, that some people are already screaming (because they did it already on Twitter when I first brought this up) that REM has "every right" to control its work how it wants to and that includes not letting the President use their music. That's mostly true. And the video may, indeed, have been infringing.

But the problem is that this wasn't used for any of the reasons that copyright specifically enables. It was flat out used because the band didn't like the politics or the political message. In other words, it was using the law to stifle political speech. That was the entire intent behind the move (REM and Universal have let other similar clips remain up) -- which REM and Mills are basically admitting with their tweets. They used copyright to censor a political message because they disagree with it. Copyright (in the US) isn't supposed to be used that way. Other countries have something called "moral rights," which would make such a takedown legitimate under moral reasons, but in the US copyright is explicitly an economic right, and not a moral one. And thus, any use of copyright -- even if otherwise legit -- is a form of copyfraud, in which the power of copyright is used not because of economic concerns, but directly to censor speech.

So even if you love REM and hate the President, if you believe in free speech, you should certainly be concerned about the use of copyright as a tool for outright censorship of speech someone didn't like.

from the the-power-of-tweet dept

It's probably well known at this point that major professional sports leagues have a strange relationship with Twitter. On the one hand, many leagues use the social media site quite well when it comes to sharing highlights and getting their brands out there in front of people. Major League Baseball is particularly good at this, although the NBA is not terribly far behind. On the other hand, these leagues have been known to adopt quite restrictive policies when it comes to who can share what on Twitter. This is especially the case on league draft days. For instance, the NFL insists that its broadcast partners, such as ESPN and the NFL Network, not allow their journalists to tweet out draft picks on draft day before they are announced on television. The league obviously wants as many eyeballs tuned into the drama on television as it can muster and has theorized that making TV the first place to get draft picks announced will help with that.

For anyone that follows sports on Twitter, this is obviously a very, very stupid theory. Many sports journalists are not working for ESPN and NFL Network, and they quite happily inform followers of draft picks before they are announced based on their sources. This is how journalism works.

Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk told San Francisco radio station 95.7 The Game this morning that he had a deal in place with the Milwaukee Bucks to move up from the 19th pick to the 17th. The Hawks knew they wanted one of two players—including Maryland shooting guard Kevin Huerter—and were sufficiently convinced that the Bucks and the Spurs (at 18) would take the two guys. So they were prepared to part with future picks in order to move up two spots and get one of their guys.

However, Schlenk said that the deal became unnecessary because Shams Charania reported that the Bucks were going to take Donte DiVincenzo, who was, apparently, not one of the two they wanted. Pick tipping is not just helpful for fans, it turns out.

My first reaction is Schlenk is good at his job, having his team monitor Twitter for this kind of intel. If sources are willing to share another team's intentions on draft night with a journalist who is all too happy to tweet that information out, it only makes sense for Schlenk to want to slurp that information up and let it inform his draft day choices.

But my second reaction is one of worry that the NBA will catch wind of this and absolutely freak the hell out. Leagues as big as the NBA almost can't help themselves when it comes to this kind of thing. The idea that a trade was scuttled due to great reporting and the tipping of a pick almost certainly isn't going to sit well with Commissioner Adam Silver and it feels quite impossible that no action over this will be taken by the league.

If the end result is the NBA trying to lock things down a la the NFL, that would be unfortunate and ultimately ineffective. If they take the much more likely action of trying to cut off access to sports journalists from teams on draft day, that would be worse for fans, for its teams, and for its own marketability. Here's hoping Silver, who is relatively forward-thinking, keeps a cooler head than I fear.

from the what-a-crock dept

Corporate Twitter accounts typically range from the blandly uninspired to exhibiting unfortunate behavior. While you can occasionally get some good content out of these handles, they are far too often just...meh.

And, yet, let's see how the Crock-Pot brand of slow-cookers responded to a genuine freak-out on the internet that occurred after a recent episode of This Is Us. For those of you who watch the show, here's your insipid little spoiler alert. A main character on the show died in a recent episode when a slow cooker malfunctioned and burned the house down. Cool. Well, apparently that's when many viewers took to Twitter to announce that they were going to get these death machines out of their houses ASAP, with many mentioning Crock-Pots by name, even though there was no branding on the murderous slow-cooker in the show.

Fans freaked out, taking to social media with tales (and gifs) of throwing away their Crock-Pots. The Crock-Pot Brand people leapt into action, quickly creating a Twitter account (@CrockPotCares) to deal with the public relations problem that had been dropped in their lap like a delicious and family-pleasing but nevertheless painful batch of hot soup.

And they did a darn good job of handling all of this on Twitter. I'm conditioned at this point to expect for companies in these instances to mirror the online freak-out themselves, going crazy about what could be viewed as an unintentional attack on its their brand. Honestly, you half expect lawsuits to be drawn up almost immediately. Crock-Pot instead began educating the internet about the safety of its products while also drawing real connections with the viewers of the show so that it comes off as non-defensive.

We totally get it! Last night’s episode was 💔, & we’re still not over it either! We want to assure you that we’re committed to safety & you can continue to use our products with confidence. We test our #CROCKPOT rigorously before they hit shelves. Pls DM us with any questions.

That's about as well as I can imagine a company handling all of this. There is also a ton more in the tweet history that shows how creative and hip whoever is managing the account has been. It would be entirely understandable for the Crock-Pot folks to be angry, irritated, or terrified of this online response to a television show. They could have easily lashed out at the show, or even at an American public who apparently has trouble telling the difference between reality and fiction. Instead, they chose to be cool and human and came off as both confident and friendly.

The House of Representatives seeks contempt citations(?) against the JusticeDepartment and the FBI for withholding key documents and an FBI witness which could shed light on surveillance of associates of Donald Trump. Big stuff. Deep State. Give this information NOW! @FoxNews

The House of Representatives seeks contempt citations(?) against the JusticeDepartment and the FBI for withholding key documents and an FBI witness which could shed light on surveillance of associates of Donald Trump. Big stuff. Deep State. Give this information NOW! @FoxNews

The key here is the contempt citations and "shedding light on surveillance" of Donald Trump's associates. These are exactly the records Brad Moss is seeking. Moss jumped on the tweet, letting the president know he'd just performed an invaluable, if inadvertent, service on behalf of his clients.

OMG, are you stupid? You just blew apart two different cases your DOJ is defending against me. I’m going to take you apart, Mr. President. https://t.co/lpeTAkBFwP

OMG, are you stupid? You just blew apart two different cases your DOJ is defending against me. I’m going to take you apart, Mr. President.

Moss (and Mark Zaid) -- representing the Brad Heath (in one case) and Propublica (in the other) -- filed complaints when the FBI refused to produce documents pertaining to alleged FISA-approved surveillance (the Heath case) and the Christopher Steele dossier (Propublica case). In support of the FOIA requests, the plaintiffs cited plenty of public comments by officials and representatives, including House Oversight member Devin Nunes, who apparently was troubled that the surveillance apparatus he loves was being used against members of his own party.

The deadline for response came and went in both cases, prompting lawsuits. According to the amended complaint [PDF] filed in the Brad Heath case, the FBI suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to provide a (non) answer when hit with a lawsuit.

Approximately six hours after the initiation of this litigation, the FBI issued a response to the Requesters. In that response, the FBI stated that it could not confirm or deny the existence of responsive records, as doing so would trigger harm to national security interests under Exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3).

Moss set some sort of FOIA litigation land speed record filing a Notice of Supplemental Information [PDF] based on the still-warm Trump tweet. The filing quotes Trump's tweet before explaining what the president was apparently referencing.

For context, this tweet by the President appears to be in reference to a news report aired on Fox News this evening. http://video.foxnews.com/v/5662667184001/ ?#sp=show-clips (last accessed November 29, 2017). In the news report, Fox News anchor Bret Baier announces that investigators for the House of Representatives have recommended the issuance of contempt citations against the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”). The basis for the contempt citations concerns pending subpoenas served upon DOJ and FBI by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and that seek, among other things, “efforts to corroborate information provided by Mr. Steele” that were memorialized in the Steele Dossier. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2017/images/09/06/nunesletter.pdf (last accessed November 29, 2017). In the Fox News report, reporter James Rosen notes the separate issue that allegations from the Steele Dossier were purportedly relied upon in some fashion as the factual justification to secure surveillance warrants targeting associates of President Trump. http://video.foxnews.com/v/5662667184001/?#sp=show-clips (last accessed November 29, 2017)

Trump's tweet -- based on Fox News reports -- makes it pretty clear the FBI has some files on surveillance targeting Trump associates. I'm sure DOJ counsel will be filing something shortly contesting Trump's assertions and/or claiming Trump's tweets aren't "official" administration statements. It shouldn't matter. The tweet and the underlying reports will force the FBI to give up its Glomar and take a side.

The President’s tweet this evening is a rather clear and concrete official acknowledgment of the existence of records responsive to the Plaintiffs’ FOIA requests. The President specifically and definitively stated that the “key documents” he is publicly ordering the FBI and DOJ to release to Congressional investigators “could shed light on surveillance of associates of Donald Trump.” This is more than sufficient to nullify at least in part, as a matter of law, the appropriateness of the Glomar responses categorically invoked by the DOJ in this present case.

This isn't the first time a Trump tweet has contradicted legal arguments made by his own administration. It certainly won't be the last. A house divided against itself cannot stand, but it does make for entertaining litigation.

from the our-tax-dollars-at-work dept

So, here's a fun one. Back in May, the Justice Department -- apparently lacking anything better to do with its time -- sent a subpoena to Twitter, demanding a whole bunch of information on a five Twitter users, including a few names that regular Techdirt readers may be familiar with:

If you can't see that, it's a subpoena asking for information on the following five Twitter users: @dawg8u ("Mike Honcho"), @abtnatural ("Virgil"), @Popehat (Ken White), @associatesmind (Keith Lee) and @PogoWasRight (Dissent Doe). I'm pretty sure we've talked about three of those five in previous Techdirt posts. Either way, they're folks who are quite active in legal/privacy issues on Twitter.

Means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number) and billing records.

That's a fair bit of information. Why the hell would the DOJ want all that? Would you believe it appears to be over a single tweet from someone to each of those five individuals that consists entirely of a smiley face? I wish I was kidding. Here's the tweet and then I'll get into the somewhat convoluted back story. The tweet is up as I write this, but here's a screenshot in case it disappears:

And, just to make it clear, here are all the users "in the conversation" on that tweet (since Twitter now buries at least some of that information):

You'll note that all of the names are the same names as listed in the subpoena above (as a point of clarification, the four users listed below were already in the conversation, so their metadata gets swept along, and then the tweeter, Justin Shafer, is also adding in @PogoWasRight to the conversation).

So, who is Justin Shafer, and what the hell is all of this about? Buckle up, because it'll take a bit of background to get around to this tweet (and, yes, it will still feel very, very, stupid that this subpoena was ever issued). First up: Justin Shafer is a security researcher, who has some history spotting bad encryption. Go back to 2013 and he had spotted a weak not really "encryption" standard put out by Faircom. Once it was called out as weak, vulnerable and not really encryption, Faircom rebranded it from the "Faircom Standard Encryption" to "Data Camouflage" since the reporting by Shafer showed that it wasn't really encryption at all -- but just a weak attempt at obfuscation.

Fast forward to late 2013, when a dentist named Rob Meaglia alerted some of his patients that a computer was stolen from his offices with "medical records and dental insurance information." But, Dr. Meaglia told his patients that the records system they were using, Dentrix, made by a company called Henry Schein, Inc., had all of that data encrypted. Except it appeared that Dentrix was actually using Faircom's "Data Camouflage" and not actual encryption. And, as that link notes, Henry Schein, Inc. had been informed of this problem months earlier, around the time Faircom admitted it wasn't actual encryption.

In May of 2016, the FTC announced a settlement with Henry Schein, Inc. over the claim that it "falsely advertised the level of encryption it provided to protect patient data." Kudos to Justin Shafer.

But, literally days later, the FBI was raiding Justin Shafer's home and taking all of his computers. This was not specifically about the Harry Schein case, but since Shafer had continued to investigate poor data security practices involving dentists, he'd come across an FTP server operated by another dental software company, Patterson Dental, which makes "Eaglesoft," a dental practice management software product. Shafer had discovered an openly available anonymous FTP server with patient data. Shafer did the right thing as a security researcher, and alerted Patterson. However, rather than thanking Shafer for discovering the server they had left with patient data exposed, Patterson Dental argued that Shafer had violated the CFAA in accessing the open anonymous FTP server. Hence the FBI raid.

Not surprisingly, Shafer was none too pleased with the FBI's decision to raid his home and take all of his electronics. In particular, it appears he was especially annoyed with FBI Special Agent Nathan Hopp (who he initially believed was actually Nathan "Hawk.")

Fast forward to March of this year, to an entirely different story: the FBI arresting John Rivello for "assaulting" journalist Kurt Eichenwald with a tweet. If you follow Techdirt related stuff, you probably remember that whole story. Lots of people, including us, posted the criminal complaint that was put together by one Nathan Hopp, a special agent at the FBI.

It appears that the Rivello arrest and subsequent news coverage suddenly alerted Shafer to the fact that "Nathan Hawk" was actually "Nathan Hopp" and Shafer began a bit of an open source "investigation" on Twitter. I wouldn't necessarily call the following tweets "smart," but Shafer, finally aware of the FBI agent who lead the raid on his house, started trying to find any public info on Hopp -- and his family. Now, searching out his family isn't great. But it does appear that he was just looking up publicly available information:

At this point, the FBI decided to start protecting its own. Seeing as the guy whose home the FBI had ridiculously raided a year earlier was now tweeting some info about one of its special agents, the FBI started putting together a new criminal complaint arguing that all of the tweets above amounted to "Cyber Stalking" under 18 USC 2216A. This seems like a huge stretch, because that law requires "intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance...."

Either way, about the time all of this was happening, Ken "Popehat" White had started another Twitter thread about the Rivello arrest, leading Virgil and Keith Lee to respond about the criminal complaint, eventually leading Mike Honcho to note "Nathan Hopp is the least busy FBI agent of all time." It is to that tweet that Shafer replies with his smiley emoji and adds or cc's, Dissent Doe to the conversation:

And that takes us to 10 days later, when a new criminal complaint against Shafer is issued*, arguing that those tweets were criminal Cyber Stalking. And because part of that included his smiley emoji in response to the Popehat thread/Honcho tweet, the DOJ felt it necessary to issue a subpoena demanding basically all info on those 5 Twitter users (including Popehat, a former Assistant US Attorney whose info is pretty easy to find on Google). Perhaps the FBI somehow thinks that Shafer was really behind those other accounts or something -- but anyone with even the slightest level of competence should realize that's unlikely -- and that's got nothing to do with anything here anyway.

* As an aside, look closely at that criminal complaint against Shafer. I have no idea why but it appears that the FBI/DOJ is so clueless that rather than submitting the final complaint, they actually submitted the copy showing the "comments" on the Word doc they were using to prepare the complaint -- which shows two comments that both suggest the FBI is well aware that this complaint is weak sauce and probably doesn't meet the standard under the law... but this story is crazy enough without spending too much time on that.

Twitter is apparently fighting back against this subpoena. And even though it was issued back in May, a few days ago, the company alerted the individuals that the DOJ was demanding info on. Dissent Doe has already stated publicly a plan to move to quash the subpoena as well, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the others named take similar steps.

But, really, take a step back and everything about this situation is crazy. Going after Shafer the first time was crazy. Going after him again for supposed "Cyber Stalking" over a few harmless tweets was clearly just the FBI trying to protect its own from being embarrassed online. Then, to subpoena a ton of info on 5 totally unrelated Twitter users... just because Shafer tweeted a smiley face emoticon at them? What the fuck is the DOJ up to? Doesn't Assistant US Attorney Douglas Gardner, who signed the subpoena, have better things to do with his time, like going after actual criminals, rather than harassing people for tweeting?

The saga began when a caseworker and supervisor from Child Protection Services dropped by my office with a Lafayette County sheriff’s deputy. You know, a typical Monday afternoon.

They told me an anonymous male tipster called Mississippi’s child abuse hotline days earlier to report me for attempting to sell my 3-year-old son, citing a history of mental illness that probably drove me to do it.

Beyond notifying me of the charges, they said I’d have to take my son out of school so they could see him and talk to him that day, presumably protocol to ensure children aren’t in immediate danger. So I went to his preschool, pulled my son out of a deep sleep during naptime, and did everything in my power not to cry in front of him on the drive back to my office.

All of this for a joke tweet.

This story is bad enough on its own. As it stands now, actions by the Mississippi authorities will chill other Mississippi parents from blowing off steam with facetious remarks on social media. But at least the chilling harm is contained within Mississippi's borders. If SESTA passes, that chill will spread throughout the country.

If SESTA were on the books, the Mississippi authorities would not have had to stop with the mom. Its next stop could be Twitter itself. No matter how unreasonable its suspicions, it could threaten criminal investigation on Twitter for having facilitated this allegedly trafficking-related speech.

The unlimited legal exposure these potential prosecutions pose will force platforms to pre-emptively remove not just the speech of parents from Mississippi but any speech from any parent anywhere that might inflame the humorless judgment of overzealous Mississippi authorities – or authorities from anywhere else where humor and judicious sense is also impaired. In fact, it won't even be limited to parents. Authorities anywhere could come after anyone who posted anything that they decided to misinterpret as a credible threat.

These warnings might sound like hyperbole, but that's what hangs in the balance: hyperbole. The ability to say ridiculous things because sometimes we need to say ridiculous things. If anything that gets said can be so willfully misconstrued as evidence of a crime it will chill a lot of speech, and to an exponentially unlimited extent far beyond any authority's jurisdictional boundaries if it can force platforms to fear enabling any such speech that might happen to set any of them off.

from the block-chain dept

A lawsuit filed against President Trump alleges a host of First Amendment violations stemming from Trump's Twitter blocklist. According to the suit filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, an official government account shouldn't be allowed to block users from reading tweets. Sure, there's an actual official presidential Twitter account, but nothing of interest happens there. Everything from retweets of questionable GIFs to arguable threats of nuclear war happen at Donald Trump's personal account. But everything's all mixed together because the president insists on using his personal account (and its blocklist) to communicate a majority of his thoughts and opinions.

First, the government has argued the Twitter account President Trump uses most is not a publicly-owned (read: government) Twitter account.

The brief’s primary argument is that @realdonaldtrump is not a public forum. It’s a private platform governed by the rules of a private company, the Justice Department said. The president opened his account before he was an elected official, the brief said, and his continued operation of the account is not a right conferred by his election to the presidency. “The president does not operate his personal Twitter account by virtue of federal law, nor is blocking made possible because the President is clothed in Article II powers,” the brief said.

This makes some sense, even if Trump's use of this account to announce positions on issues and potential government action undermine the "not a public forum" argument. He did have this account prior to the presidency, but perhaps he should have abandoned it for the official presidential account once he took office. Even though this argument is somewhat credible, the next argument from the government almost completely undermines it.

President Trump, in other words, is not flexing his presidential power when he tweets as @realdonaldtrump, according to the Justice Department. But at the same time, Justice argued in the summary judgment brief, the president can’t be sued for posting to his private account because he’s acting as the president.

He's not the president (so to speak) when he tweets from his personal account. But he is the president, so he can't be sued. No matter how many accounts he blocks. The president, according to White House counsel, is able to occupy two states simultaneously thanks to the magical powers of Twitter.

It sounds ridiculous (and it is), but as Frankel points out, seemingly contradictory arguments are made all the time at this point in the pleadings. The judge is one that decides which arguments move forward -- sometimes even without calling out lawyers for arguing against their own arguments.

Stripping the case of all legalese, the account Trump prefers to use should be considered an official account. And if it's an official account, Trump needs to lay off the "block" button. You can't force citizens to jump through hoops to view proclamations made in a de facto public square. Even if Trump can't be sued, he should at least lift the blocks. It's not very presidential to pointedly lock certain people out of public discussions.

from the bears-win! dept

With the trademarking of hashtags now in full swing, it's about time some light was shone on exactly what type of trademarks are granted on them. The trademarking of hashtags isn't in and of itself perplexing, although it does cause this writer some mild annoyance. Locking up language in general is something that should be treated carefully, but doing so specifically with social media language in an ecosystem designed for proliferation and sharing is ripe for conflict. One need only look at how the Olympics treats hashtags to see this, or how big businesses will greedily "protect" the use of hashtags, no matter any actual concern about public confusion over the use of the marks. The point is, the same general problem with the practical application of trademarks is exacerbated by social media: trademarks too often aren't specific or identifying enough.

Recently, an example of this has emerged on Twitter in the form of a quickly-resolved dispute between the University of California and the NFL's Chicago Bears. Cal's mascot is "the Golden Bears", you see. The Chicago Bears somewhat irritatingly staked a claim to the hashtag #GoBears, such that the Chicago Bears logo appeared every time someone used the hashtag. The University of California holds a trademark on the hashtag, however, and the school's Twitter account registered its annoyance with the Chicago team in an admittedly congenial way.

Now, to be clear, what the Chicago Bears did was both dumb and irritating. Cal's response was not overly aggressive either. The end result of all of this was that the Chicago Bears backed off and the team logo no longer appears when the hashtag is used. There's no big bad villian in this story.

But we're not going to let this go without pointing out that #GoBears simply is not a source-identifying hashtag for the Cal Golden Bears. It's just not. There are a ton of teams that use some flavor of "bears" as their mascots. Here in Chicago, when someone says "go Bears!", there is no confusion as to the reference and the University of California never even enters the mind. So, instead of being a trademark designed to act as a brand identifier, instead this is simply an instance of a university locking up the term in hashtag form. It's exactly the same as what the Chicago Bears did, in other words, when it placed its logo alongside any use of the hashtag: claiming ownership and limiting the use of the term for everyone else. Given that the term is a terrible identifier of the product being discussed, it seems obvious that it never should have been granted trademark rights.

A lawsuit in the United Kingdom is raising questions about fair use and copyright laws after a freelance photographer sued a news publication for embedding a tweet within an article. Eddie Mitchell, a freelance photographer, is taking Sky News to court after the publication used a tweet containing his photo within an article. Mitchell gave permission to the original tweeter, the Station 43 Midhurst Fire Department, but said the news organization did not have permission to use the photo.

The news organization defended its actions (even though it really didn't need to) by pointing out it had only embedded a tweet from a government agency, assuming the rights to the photo belonged to the fire department. When notified this wasn't the case, the tweet was immediately removed from the story.

Embedding a tweet shouldn't trigger a courtroom debate over fair use or copyright law. (And, despite this article's belief otherwise, there are no "fair use" protections to be discussed in the UK. The UK has "fair dealing," which is somewhat the same, but contains fewer protections than the American version.) A public tweet is fair game for any news organization, no matter what it contains. If someone is tweeting out another person's intellectual property (photo, video, etc.), the onus is on the person tweeting this to ensure the legitimacy of the content's origin.

Embedding a tweet should raise no further legal issues than simply retweeting a tweet. No one needs to ask anyone's permission to retweet a tweet. Embedding a tweet shows everything contained in the original tweet, including the originating account and any activity related to the tweet. It changes nothing and, in fact, does not completely reside on the page where it's embedded. At no time does the content included in the tweet change hands. It's never in possession of the entity that embeds the tweet, not even as a temporary file. If the original use -- the fire department's tweet -- wasn't infringing, embedding the fire department's tweet at another site doesn't magically change it into infringement.

And yet, we have a lawsuit -- and the potential, however small, for the court to side with someone who's clearly in the wrong. Based on what's been reported, it appears the real issue here is the fact that Sky News didn't immediately turn around and cut the photographer a check.

Sky News immediately removed the tweet in question, but Mitchell is suing because the publication refused to pay for the use of that embedded image.

“They did not make any attempt via social media or the services 24/7 control to ask permission to use the said picture/tweet, Sky News took it for granted that all crown pictures are free to use and therefore did.

“If they had asked West Sussex Fire and Rescue control or firefighter who tweeted it, they would have told it was not their copyright to grant such use.”

Once again, no one needs to ask permission before embedding a tweet. And there's no obligation, morally, legally or otherwise, for embedders to perform some sort of IP due diligence before embedding a tweet. The photographer's insistence that he's been wronged appears to be entirely based on his subjective reaction to the chain of events, rather than any legal precedent or UK copyright protections. Despite being asked for comment several times, he's come up with nothing better than Sky News should have asked his permission to embed a tweet from a government account. And by "ask permission," he means "pay up."

It's tough to imagine this lawsuit will go far, even when lobbed into a court system of a nation with slightly different views on intellectual property protections. It makes about as much sense as suing Twitter for allowing third parties to interact with public tweets by retweeting or embedding them. In other words, none. Hopefully the UK court will toss this suit before it becomes a nuisance to Sky News, Twitter, or the general idea of sharing publicly-available social media posts.